My gripes about the text editor.

[PhilosophyAndFerrisWheels 6]

Firstly, I am discussing the Windows Evernote platform.

I'll start by saying that I love Evernote, and I've been a premium user for a while. But there are some basic things that irk me about the text editor. Things which should have never been an issue inside a basic text editor.

A text editor is something that is easy to get right. Just look at Notepad. Notepad is easy to use and never tries to be anything other than Notepad.

So, why is it that when I hit CTRL-F to find something in a document - and the search window appears - and I hit ESC to exit the search window, does the cursor return to the top of the document? 

Escaping from the search window should not return the user to the very top of the document. What if the document is one hundred pages long? Or any arbitrary number? 

If I am writing something, and I am on page fifteen of my writing and I hit CTRL-F to find the word "dog," and the screen scrolls-up to the first use the word 'dog,' and I am satisfied that I am looking at the instance of the word 'dog' that I desire... when I press ESC, I want to go to the word DOG, not the top of the document.

I wasn't just searching because I was curious about words, because words are cute and I like how pretty they are when the sun reflects of them, I was searching for a reason. The reason was to find the word 'dog.' And evernote takes my search for 'dog' and tells me "HERE IS THE WORD DOG. IT EXISTS. NOW RETURN TO THE START OF THE DOCUMENT."

Come on. This is basic word processing. 

On a typewriter, would I roll a piece of paper back to the beginning of the carriage every time I looked back for a word?

What the hell, guys?

.....

Secondly, the cursor position.

When creating a new note, the cursor position goes directly into the document. Not the title.

That is infuriating. Does google do that with email? Google didn't invent email, but they pretty-much mastered it.

Don't re-invent the wheels here, guys. Put the cursor in the title section by default.

I realize that there is a checkbox in the options menu to place the cursor in the title... but guess what??

The button doesn't work!! 

Yes, it places the cursor in the title by default (WHICH SHOULD BE DEFAULT ANYWAY), but after you click that checkbox, the cursor continues returning to the title bar every 10 seconds or so. 

While you're typing a sentence - right in the middle of writing a sentence - the cursor returns to the title bar.

You placed a band-aide on top of a band-aide and it doesn't work.

 

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These issues are basic annoying. It's a text editor. How do you ***** up a text editor?

Otherwise, I do appreciate the hard work you do. But maybe focus on your core product instead of cheesy add-ons. Thanks.

-Alex

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DTLow 5,080]

Are you sure the Note format and Evernote editor are the best tool to be using for the lengthy writing you're describing.

Personally, I use alternative apps, for example word processing; Evernote works well with Office/iWork attachments

[PhilosophyAndFerrisWheels 6]

I've written a couple of novels in evernote. It's the only software I trust for work which exceeds a certain length. 

I don't like the process of using Word or Open Office, then saving something to google drive. And I don't like Google Docs editor. It's too cumbersome. I like a simple text editor like Evernote. 

Evernote is really the best software I've ever used for writing. It's ideal for notes and longer pieces. And research, and clippings and bibliographies. It's just perfect. 

But the cursor thing is annoying. It's a bug. 

Anyway, I read back what I wrote in my first comment, and decided it came off as too harsh. Sorry about that. But it felt good to say it. Thanks for reading my rant.

I'd like to think that I'm not an *****, but maybe I am and don't realize it. Anyway, thanks.

[DTLow 5,080]

1 hour ago, PhilosophyAndFerrisWheels said:

I don't like the process of using Word or Open Office, then saving something to google drive.

I actually use Evernote for my filing.  I use various editors as required

>>Evernote is really the best software I've ever used for writing.

Could you give some specifics as to how the Evernote editor is the best software

 

[PhilosophyAndFerrisWheels 6]

Yeah, sure.

I write a lot, I always have. I keep notebooks in the real world and I keep evernote notebooks on the internet. 

I used to write notes in notepad or MS Word. But notepad has serious limitations, and Word is slow and filled with too much fluffy accouterments for my needs. I don't want to wait 30 seconds for a program to load, just to write a note. Then have that note saved in a random place on a hard drive.

With evernote, I can create notes on the fly, on any device. The notes are always saved in one place. The notes are saved with every keystroke. They are backed-up on servers, and accessible on any of my devices. It's brilliant.  

The program is fast, I never have to wait, and I can write notes as fast as I think them. There is no waiting between thought and writing. Evernote is fast. I guess that's kind of why I got annoyed with the cursor and the find function. It really isn't that big of a deal to a casual user, but since I use evernote so much it got annoying after a while.

 

Anyway, when I started writing novels I decided to use evernote. Everything I write in this program is secure and safe. I don't need to worry about losing huge chunks of work because of a hard drive crash. And I especially like the simplistic editor window. It's plain and simple. No frills and nothing to get in the way. Just white space.

With Word or Open Office, there's always a fear that I'll lose 80k words if the hard drive crashes. And I don't like having to save something as a word doc, then pasting it to google drive for security. it's too cumbersome. 

So I chose to write all of my novels in Evernote. When I'm done with the books I format them in Open Office, But all of the real work is done is evernote. 

So it's easy for me to write. To just plop a bunch of words out at once and not worry about them getting lost. I've lost documents before in iTunes syncs because I don't understand how it works. iTunes takes forever and it's confusing. Evernote is not.

Also, there's note history. So I can see the revisions I've made all the way back to the beginning of my books. I can track my progress and see where I came from. Word doesn't offer that. The only other way to get something like that would be to save my work inside Git or something, which tracks versions.

So that's why I like it, I guess. It's simple and I feel safe knowing my work is safe on a server somewhere

 

I'm still a littler paranoid, so I make data dumps of all my work every once in a while, which Evernote allows. How cool is that. Anyway, that's why. Thanks for asking.

 

 

 

 

[DTLow 5,080]

Thanks for providing the background.  

I'm not an author, just technical stuff.  I've heard there's a benefit to using a simple editor to the complexity of a word processor

I still believe that regardless of the editor used, you can use Evernote to store your files

I appreciate your concerns about backups.  Paranoia aside, its recognition that we share the responsibility in protecting our data